Astrid Styma

Astrid Styma’s work draws attention to the emotional relationships we have with our bodies. She explores vulnerability and the gaze through depictions of intimate details of bodily existence. Soft pastel tones smooth over and obscure her figures’ faces and other identifiers – they appear isolated and anonymous. While the sensuousness of her subject matter suggests intimacy, Styma’s work holds a heavy and cold atmosphere. She has produced paintings of forms made in glass and porcelain, proposing a proximity between these fragile materials and the feminine body. Referencing surrealist impossible spaces, Styma asks questions around boundaries, personhood and how we relate to our material selves.

Styma was born in 1988 in Hannoversch Münden, Germany. She studied at the academy of fine arts Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 2007 to 2014. In 2011 she was Artist in Residence at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and in 2015 undertook a residency at Wasps Artists’ Studio, Glasgow. She has had several solo exhibitions in Düsseldorf where she lives and works.